


eat your heart out

by balimaria



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Experimental Style, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Jousting, Minecraft Manhunt, POV Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Sapnap Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Temporary Character Death, Villain Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28344216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balimaria/pseuds/balimaria
Summary: I rewrote my two favorite scenes from the 4v1 Manhunt finale rematch (AKA the joust and the lava fight) and also added lore and lots of angst to it lmao.Sapnap and Dream centric.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 71





	eat your heart out

Dream pulls back the reins, bringing his horse to a gentle stop in the midst of a grassy plain. A gust of cold wind slides down the mountains in the distance, causing him to shiver as he hoists himself off the saddle. 

His boots hit the grass without a sound.

_Deep breath. Look around. Are you alone?_

Yes. Nothing but a herd of cattle in the distance.

_Take stock. What do you have? What do you need?_

He has armor, an axe, and seven blaze rods. That’s enough.

_What next?_

Ender pearls. Dream glances up at the sun - just past midday. His horse whinnies, pawing at the earth. Blue diamond on black fur. Red fire under white skies.

The wind whistles.

There’s a thumping inside his head. Blood over nerves. Heartbeat. The air draws thin. His axe finds its way into his hands on its own. Heartbeat. Thunder in the clouds.

The bushes behind Dream crackle with lightning.

_“Dream…”_

The leaves explode in a flurry of hooves and razor-edged blades but before he even has a second to comprehend what just happened there’s a saddle between his legs and thunderthunderthunder in his ears and his axe rests heavy in his hand.

_You can beat him one on one. Possibility of a trap, but using Sapnap as bait is a bad idea. He’s the brute. Likely sent to follow me and got too cocky. He’ll be expecting you to fight him, but not on horseback._

Pause. Stop. Pull back the reins. Turn. On the dime.

Big hazel stallion. Scars along the flank. Unarmored but with skin as thick as steel. Sapnap sat atop the saddle like the sun over the earth. He’s got an axe and a smile and a fire in his eyes.

“Hey there, hot stuff,” he taunts, smirking. “Nice pony.”

The air crackles. Bridges burned. A quest. A loop. Death. The End. A snap slices the air in two. Leather reins against the sound. Heartbeat hoofbeat. Axe like a promise between his fingers.

Dream cries, urging his horse into motion. She bucks, wet black eyes fearful and wide - but then there is thunder and grass like waves beneath the surface tension. Hoofbeat heartbeat.

Sapnap is laughing, his fingers buried in his stallion’s mane. His axe glints in the sun.

Unspoken rules pass through the lightning. A joust. Axe and horse. Just the two of them - old friends, new enemies. The distance between them closes faster and faster. Dream releases the reins, trusting his horse and gripping his axe in both hands. Sapnap mirrors him motion for motion. Closer closer closer. Terminal velocity.

First pass. Dream feels the blade cut through Sapnap’s arm severing tendons and opening the heart to beat beat beat its life away and the mirror smiles as pain sweeps through his own arm digging and twisting into muscles and nerves and crawling up his spine like fire up a tree.

“Only one of us is making it out of here alive, Dream!”

Stop. Turn. Second pass. Muscled flank beneath his fingers. Blood under and over his skin. His axe grinds a sliver into Sapnap’s armor. Sapnap’s axe misses his torso by an inch. Not good enough.

Stop. Turn. Third pass. Stop. Turn. Fourth pass. Copper dripping over their saddles. 

Fifth pass. The thunder reaches a crescendo. Two wild beasts tangle hoof over leg as their riders snarl like hounds.

“I hate you, Dream.”

“I know.”

Sapnap’s brute of a stallion slams a hoof against Dream’s mare. A scream that cuts his ears rips from her teeth and then he’s flying off her back watching his own blood frozen in the white white sky.

His back slams into the earth. The thunder drowns and dies.

“Y’know, I really thought I meant something to you.”

Fire digs roots out of the earth, binding him against the grass.

“But I guess that’s just how it is, huh?”

His ears ring, something pulsing between the sound.

“You’re fucking cyanide. You know that, right?”

Red fire. White sky.

“Say something.”

Roots tear. Ash spills across the soil. There’s an axe in his ruined hand and a hatred boiling in his veins.

_“I’m gonna fucking kill you.”_

The flat side of his axe rails against Sapnap’s shoulder. He falls. Fire in the sky. The stallion flees. Something cracks as he hits the dirt. Collarbone. Broken. Immobilised. Dream presses his boot against Sapnap’s lungs. Symbolism? Sapnap coughs up a clot of blood. It drips down his chin as he smiles with red red teeth.

“Do it, then,” he rasps. “I’ll be back.” 

Dream puts the axe through Sapnap’s gut. Blood flecks his clothes. The corpse dissolves into sand into wind into fire.

Heartbeat. Silence. Wind down the mountains. Dream wraps a bandage around his arm. He glances up at the sun - getting lower. 

He’d need ten pearls at the minimum. Best to get started now.

====

“He’s right above you, Sap! Look out!”

The hunters are screaming and shouting, trying to navigate the narrow ravine without slipping into the lava bubbling just inches below. Bad is yelling instructions. The lava spits. A fire resistance potion hangs innocently from his belt.

_Think. That’s what you’re good at._

Ant yowls as a spray of lava sears his skin. Dream takes a bite of mutton.

_All of us have full armor. Unenchanted. Iron axes and bows. Four vs. one is impossible. Need to get them separated. Sapnap drank a fire res approximately a minute and a half ago. The other hunters will fall back but he will push ahead._

Dream uncorks the thick amber potion and downs it. 

“He drank a potion! What is it?”

“Fire res! He’s got fire res!”

Dream grips a rocky outcrop, using it to levy himself down to where Sapnap was attempting to sneak up on him. Cold slithers down his veins. Stars die in Sapnap’s eyes.

“It’s always gonna be you versus me, huh?”

Dream whips out his axe, landing a blunt hit across Sapnap’s shoulder. Sap laughs, barely seeming to feel the strike. A smile. Red red teeth. Then he’s falling backwards into the lava without a hint of hesitation. 

Screaming. Fear? Encouragement? Doesn’t matter. Focus.

Dream leaps in after him.

“What is he doing?”

“He jumped into the lava!”

“Sapnap, kill him!”

Molten rock closes in around his ears. Deep, viscous orange fills every corner of his vision. Sapnap breaks the monotony. The lava seems to move with him, pushing him forward, raising his axe simmering with heat and pulling it down across Dream’s cheek. His blood evaporates the second it flows out of his body.

Iron fingers wrap around his wrists. He’s trapped with a monster. Magma courses down its throat and fills the space between its bones. It breathes fire. It is fire. 

It tells him it's going to kill him.

Dream tears his mind and body away just as the axe comes down for another hit. Bubbles rise from Sapnap’s mouth as he laughs. A dance. A duel. What’s the difference?

“George,” Sapnap says. The words ring clearly through the lava. “Drop your water down.”

“But you’ll die!”

“I know.”

All at once fear fills his lungs hot and heavy he is swimming up up up but there is a hand around his ankle pulling him deeper deeper deeper he watches as a layer of impenetrable obsidian seals away the surface and he is trapped with a monsterfriendplayer. 

How poetic.

“We’re both gonna die here, Dream!”

Magma between its teeth, the beast rips a chunk from his torso. Agony lances through his gut. His hands rip themselves apart against knifepoint rock.

“He’s trying to get out!” Laughs a voice from the safety. Taunting, hating. Hands pull him down once again. The beast sinks its claws into his cheeks, holding him steady.

“I have ten seconds left,” the beast whispers. He does not know why it tells him this.

_You have 57 seconds. Escape. Outlive. Outlast._

Dream kicks Sapnap away, ripping his pickaxe from his belt and chipping away at the wall.

Nine.

The beast snarls. Hounds in the night. Starving.

Eight.

Teeth around his shin. The promise of the slaughter.

Seven.

“If I’m going to die, I’m taking you with me.”

Six.

Focus. Escape, outlive, outlast. 

Five.

“FUCKING FIGHT ME! FUCKING _DIE!”_

Four.

The beast screams - a bloody, hateful thing. 

Three.

Dream stops.

Two.

Dream turns.

One.

Dream waits.

The lava eats Sapnap from the inside out. Quick, painless death. Screaming from the safety. Seconds to save himself. Dream swims into the crevice he carved for himself and blocks it off, letting the excess lava drain away into the main pool. Something rumbles beneath his boots. Thunder. Stars above, stars between.

The fire resistance fades. He takes another bite of mutton, then continues mining.

=====

Dream loses, in the end. Antfrost cornered him and killed him with some bottled magic. He congratulates the hunters through gritted teeth. Sapnap stares at him far too long. They turn to go their separate ways.

“Later, Dream,” says Bad.

“See you soon,” says George.

“Better luck next time,” says Ant.

“...Bye,” says Sapnap.

Dream leaves the game. He does not say anything at all.


End file.
